when my mother made pizza, she used Kraft American chees slices – the yellow ones! :eek:
(true, true. I swear.)
Grated cheddar cheese on our spaghetti, instead of parmesan (we were considered daring for eating spaghetti tho).
Eww - My mom put grated cheddar on spaghettii too. Big bowl of sweaty, grated mild cheddar right in the middle of the table.
When money was tight we had pretend blt sandwiches: White bread (untoasted) with miracle whip (not even mayo 
)
Oh that’s another one I forgot: white bread with miracle whip and slice american cheese, in the microwave to get the cheese melty.
I did not taste real mayo until I was much older. I thought it all tasted like miracle whip.
Well, I guess I’m super white bread…
I love Miracle Whip. More than mayo. It’s so vinegary! Yum.
My mother makes tacos using a sloppy joe recipe. (To be fair, she has a very sensitive digestive system-ANY little bit of spice and she’s in the bathroom all night).
Doritos were a popular casserole topping.
Circa 1989, I asked my parents what reggae was. They had no idea, and I mean no idea: person, place, thing, animal, mineral, vegetable, sitcom, bicycle part, no idea.
Ritz and Saltine crackers were a key ingredient in several common caseroles.
I did not know what a bagel looked like until I saw one in the cafeteria my freshman year of college. I thought is was a doughnut.
The sexiest cereal in our pantry was Cheerios.
At one point we owned four, count 'em four, Oldsmobiles, and this made my stepfather proud.
For the non-Americans amongst us could somebody kindly define the term ‘white bread’?
Bland, boring, unadventurous. You only eat plain white bread, you don’t like to try anything different, like say, oh, cinnamon bread, or whole wheat bread.
‘white bread’ = the folks in the wonder bread commercials. No contact with other cultures, foods, etc. Folks who have never eaten in an “ethnic” resturant, and please don’t suggest it. Or if they do try to do the cultural thing, make pizza with cheez whiz instead real cheese (see Imo’s Pizza in Missourah). 
My mom used Ritz, saltines and potato chips as a topping for various chicken casseroles. Like Guin’s mother, she also made tacos with Sloppy Joe seasoning. Taco night was about as ethnic as we got. Broccoli was the most daring veggie we ate.
Me, too. I had heard of bagels, but hadn’t ever seen one. When I saw an onion bagel in the cafeteria at college, I wondered out loud what kind of weird donut it was. My hip roommate from Jersey set me straight.
My father was considered a commie-pinko subversive in our neighborhood because rather than drive a GM vehicle, he drove a Volkswagon. Okay, I’m kidding, but just a little bit. I grew up in a very white-bread Leave It To Beaver kind of neighborhood. All the moms were stay-at-home moms and drove Chevy station wagons. The dads all drove Oldsmobile or Buick sedans.
We drank Tang.
Out of a plastic pitcher shaped like an orange (dimples and all).
And all of our everyday dishes were made of Melmac.
I once was at a gathering at a house where they served tacos on a sort of do-it-yourself buffet style setup. It was store-bought taco shells, plain unseasoned ground beef, shredded iceberg lettuce, velveeta, and miracle whip.
I was glad I had the excuse of being a vegetarian to be able to get out of that meal politely.
Growing up, the only music played around the house was Mitch Mitchell and Lawrence Welk. The day the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, my father turned the TV off rather than listen to “that noise.” Ditto the aforementioned “Let’s see how many Oldsmobiles we can own.”
My family was so white-bread, the only Chinese food we ever had came in a can marked ‘La-Choy’. I grew up feeling pity towards the millions upon millions of Asians that I thought were forced to eat boiled celery on top of canned crunchy noodles 3 meals a day… :eek:
The most exotic thing my mother said they ever had at her mother’s house was a casserole dish called “Roman Holiday.” It had tomato sauce! And elbow noodles! Very foreign and exotic back in the day. My mom was more adventurous. She made actual spaghetti, with grated parmesan cheese. But I was a teenager before I had even heard of pizza.
I had never heard of a bagel until after I was married.
For special occasions, homemade pizza – from Chef BoyArdee, in a box. If we felt especially adventurous, we’d put little globs of ground beef on it, or canned mushrooms.
For us the evening wasn’t complete without a big bowl of Jello. Of course, Jello didn’t come in flavors, only colors.
Red, pink, green, purple, yellow, orange and my favorite, dark red.